Plato had little praise for rhetoric and oratory. He also had little
praise for democracy. The 2 were, for him, essentially linked. Most of
his early dialogues, and indeed The Republic, feature Plato's Socrates
showing the Sophists (who were largely focused on Rhetoric and oratory)
that their teachings lead to impasse, contradiction and folly. It's true
that in one dialogue, The Phaedrus, he has Socrates leave open the
possibility of a productive and ethical rhetoric directed towards the
apprehension of truth. But more generally, he sees rhetorical arguments
as a form of flattery, a way of appealing to irrational elements in an
audience to exercise influence on others. Dialectic vs. Rhetoric thus
aligns with the Philosophy/Sophistry and Reason/Emotion dichotomies in Plato. Real
philosophers are lovers of truth and wisdom; Sophists are only
"philodoxers," or lovers of doxa-- i.e. opinion. They also love to
influence opinions without necessarily getting closer to truth.
Sophists were professional traveling teachers that had emerged largely
to meet needs of litigants. As such, many of them were less committed to
finding truth than winning arguments. Some (e.g. Protagoras) denied
objective truth altogether, though Plato may exaggerate according to
more recent scholars. But he is responding to this aspect of sophists,
and seems to assume that all or most rhetoric instantiates these
perceived deficits. But Plato also thinks only philosophical elites
need to worry about public life and significant speech in politics. Both in Republic and Laws,
there's really little, if any room for most people in the polis to exert any
influence over the polity.
In a democracy, or even a mixed constitution that gives citizens a role
in public life and governance, rhetoric and oratory are valuable skills
if placed within the context of shared civic virtues and constitutional
principles. Hence Aristotle, who favored a mixed constitution not too
different from Republicanism, is much more supportive of rhetoric as an
integral part of public life. Since the kind of polis he endorses leaves
room for all citizens (free members of the polis) to play some role in
public life, it is important that citizens refine their communicative
abilities so that they may discuss and argue cogently and persuasively
about policies, laws etc. In a top-down society-- whether headed by
philosopher kings or tyrants-- there is little room for argument and
persuasion. Coercion and rule by decree is preeminent. So, we can see
how the need to communicate well becomes more important when people are
given a greater voice. This underlies the rise of rhetoric in those
societies in Greece and Rome that invested citizens with not only the
right but the obligation to participate in civic debate and policy
formation. The rise of trial by jury of fellow citizens, as opposed to
authoritarian courts, also made effective argument important in these
societies.
For Aristotle governmental, educational (Paideia) legal, philosophical
and political communication should be enacted with excellence (arete). He lays out 3 key elements in his rhetoric: ethos, logos and pathos.
Appeal to ethos is the speaker's appeal to that which is likely to
result in the audience conferring trustworthiness and credibility onto
that speaker. For example, if one says, "I speak from years of
experience as a professor of medicine," this invites the audience to
attribute credibility to that speaker. In cultural and political
context, credibility may have less to do with credentials than values
and beliefs shared by the speaker and audience. Thus an appeal to
religious norms and values when addressing a congregation, or widespread
patriotic ideals when addressing a nation show that gaining respect has
much to do with ethos in the sense of shared ways of life.
Logos is the element of rationality associated with dialectic
or logic. It includes such things as ability to gather relevant info,
and finding and presenting good evidence for your claims via well
reasoned arguments. Rhetoric without logos can degenerate into baseless
propaganda or invective. But any genuine Rhetoric, on the classical
model, must be grounded in empirical facts and carefully structured
inferences.
Appeal to pathos to the emotions of those you address is
crucial if we want to motivate the audience to not just believe an
argument but take action based on it. A classic example would be
appealing to emotions associated with patriotism, and fear of insecurity
in order to motivate people to fight in a (presumably just) war. We
also see appeal to pathos in more peaceful campaigns such as the Space
Race of the 1950s and 60s that led to the moon landings. More troubling,
appeals to resentments and xenophobia may fuel, say, anti-immigration
invective which can lead to scapegoating (not that we should assume all
immigration should be tolerated as legal; rather the issue here is the
possibility of dehumanizing and villainizing out-groups) .
Aristotle and the Romans who expanded on his Rhetoric, viewed appeals to
ethos, logos and pathos as something akin to the 3 legs that support a
stool. All are equally important. Attention to logos makes what used to
be called the "pathetic fallacy" (arguments that rely almost solely on
emotions) much less likely. Of course, manipulative speakers may violate
the precept of appealing strongly to logos-- but that is not in keeping
with classical rhetoric. Ethos is important in a complex society. We
don't all know the intricacies of, say, medicine, engineering or
physics, and so when speakers appear on, say, TV with their titles and
academic affiliations we usually attribute basic credibility to them in a
way that we would not if they were just ordinary people with no
training or credentials in the domain about which they speak (medicine,
cybersecurity or whatever else). Though we are currently seeing
decreased trust in putative experts and increased populism, this is
still only a matter of degree. We don't ask strangers if a certain pill
has any side effects or poses a risk to the body; we look for some type
of expertise.
Roman Rhetoric emphasized the importance of having other people on
board with you-- recognizing their importance as fellow citizens
(egalitarian bent here, though this won't extend to non-citizens).
Another non-elitist aspect is the belief that you can be taught to speak
well and govern, that rhetoric is not necessarily an innate talent.
Thus a myriad of handbooks on rhetoric and oratory emerged in Republican
Rome. Cicero and later Quintillian made important contributions to the
field.
The Roman systems divide rhetoric up into 3 branches. 1. Judicial or
Forensic rhetoric appeals mostly to reason in order to judge things
that happened in the past. Establishing the guilt or innocence of an
accused person is an obvious example of forensic rhetoric. 2. Epideictic
or Demonstrative rhetoric appeals mainly to pathos/passions often in
order to make a speech of praise or condemnation. Speeches at weddings,
funerals, graduation ceremonies, et al., all concern appeal to the
sentiments of the audience. A formal denunciation of a traitor or
criminal relies equally on moving the audience. Still, logos must be
operative or else we can fall into mere flattery or ad hominem (mere
insult). There should be logical reasons based on empirical facts when
we speak of a criminal or traitor. 3. Deliberative rhetoric is aimed at
influencing actions to be taken such as whether members of the audience
will vote X or Y in an election. The interest here is in future
outcomes, and the means by which they can be influenced by speech and
argument. Again, we can see that in authoritarian systems, this is much
less important than Republican and Democratic systems in which citizens
have input. So in Republican Rome many handbooks and pedagogical
systems for constructing variations and combinations of these 3
branches emerge, which in turn rest on the principle of showing roughly equal
concern for appeals to ethos, logos and pathos.
This very short history of Classical Rhetoric should indicate why
rhetorical practice is important to thriving democracies and free
republics. Rhetoric ultimately rests on some (varying) degree of free
speech in public life, which has been rather rare historically. In order
to use such freedom of speech with care and skill, we should take some
kind of interest in evaluating and making arguments based on the
categories of logic ( logos), trustworthines/credibility (ethos) and
awareness of emotional factors at play (pathos). Once we learn to
analyze the contents of free speech in this way, we are less easily
manipulated by others and more capable of expressing ourselves
effectively. But does any of this insure that free speech will be used
ethically?
No. This is not possible. Rhetoric can be used for good and ill. Free
speech always leaves open the possibility that those who use it may do
so in ways that are injurious or destructive. This is why both Aristotle
and Cicero emphasized that Rhetoric was just one element of a good
education. It's proper use depends, for them, on the cultivation of
virtues consistent with shared political values such as those enshrined
in constitutions. Civic virtues, as the founders of the US liked to say,
are necessary to any government that grants a wide range of liberties
to citizens. It would be necessary to write another post to explore
various paradigms of virtue ethics (which is currently very topical in
contemporary ethics and political theory). But clearly, the idea was
always that rhetoric be bounded or even constrained by widely shared
societal norms and values. When these begin to break down or become
fragmented, as in our own time, it is most important to carefully
examine the content of speech and journalism for exaggerated appeal to
contentious (widely unshared) premises, beliefs, values and norms. An
awareness of rhetorical methods, strategies and tropes can help the
citizen to be less vulnerable to the machinations of propagandists,
ideologues and demagogues. Hopefully, in time we will be able to employ
rhetoric constructively within the context of widespread societal values
and goals-- in other words within the context of a widely shared
political vision of what kind of people we as a nation want to be. For
as it says in Proverbs, "Where there is no vision the people shall
perish."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sources/Further Reading:
Aristotle:
The Art of Rhetoric: Penguin Classics, trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred
The Nicomoachean Ethics: Oxford World Classics, trans. David Ross
Cicero:
De Inventione- available free via Internet Archive-- https://archive.org/details/cicerodeoratore01ciceuoft
De Oratore- at Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/ciceroonoratoryo00cice and good wikipedia summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Oratore
Edward P.J. Corbett and Rosa A. Eberly:
The Elements of Reasoning (2nd Ed.)-- a short but
comprehensive and useful overview of both classical and modern rhetoric
with lots of examples from contemporary media and politics..
Monday, March 8, 2021
Rhetoric, Republicanism and Democracy
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